


Fortune Favors

by Elvichar



Category: The Fortune Cookie, The Fortune Cookie - Billy Wilder film
Genre: 1960s, Billy Wilder, M/M, Race, Rare Fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:03:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elvichar/pseuds/Elvichar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Hinkle feels very guilty for what they've done. He also realizes he is developing other feelings for the man who has been sharing his apartment since the incident.</p><p>Based on characters created by Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond. Geniuses the both of them. I’m not making money out of this so I hope everyone forgives me.</p><p>Fortune favours the brave. (“Fortes fortu’na ad’juvat.”) (Terence: Phor’mio, i. 4.)</p><p>Based on the film The Fortune Cookie (aka Meet Whiplash Willie). It's a great movie, and you really need to see it before this makes sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fortune Favors

It was a relief in a way.

Now he was never going to be rich - but at least he had his dignity.

Sandy never loved him. Harry couldn’t understand how he’d allowed himself to be strung along by that woman for so long. Why had he been taken in?

A lesser man might resort to calling her a money grabbing whore. Willy certainly had. But Harry couldn’t. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t using her just as much as she was using him.

He liked her. Despite everything. But he never really loved her. She realized - even before Harry did - that there was never going to be any big romance between them.

So no. He couldn’t really blame her for trying to find something more.

He wasn’t the victim here. Luther “Boom Boom” Jackson was the only one who had really suffered.

And that was the one thing Harry didn’t think he could forgive himself.

 

***************

 

When he found Boom Boom, on the football field, the man didn’t even get angry. After all Harry had put him through he was still prepared to be civil.

It broke your heart.

But there was no way it was going to end like this. No way he was going to let Boom Boom give up on himself.

A professional wrestler? Please. The man was a god on the football field.

And the best friend Harry had ever had.

“Come on I’ll buy you a drink at the bowling alley,” Boom Boom slapped Harry on the back.

“Oh no. No drinking for either of us. It’s no good for you, and I’m bound to do something stupid if I start on the alcohol,” Harry smiled. “Let’s just go back to my place. You can make some of that fantastic ‘Spaghetti Boom Boom’- I’m starving.”

“That’s great, Harry. I get to do all the work. What do you do?” Boom Boom grinned.

“Well I’ll cook if you want me to. But I warn you, you’re likely to be hospitalized if you eat the stuff I make.”

Boom Boom laughed. Which made Harry’s grin spread wider across his face. Such a good friend. How could he ever have listened to that shyster brother-in-law?

“Well there’s nothing I’d like better than to be laid up in bed for a couple of weeks,” Boom Boom said.

Harry paused. He couldn’t mean what it sounded like he meant. Surely.

Harry checked himself. When did he get such a dirty mind? And what was he thinking? An innocent comment like that - from the sweetest guy he’d ever met. And stuff like that was popping into his head.

he thought. Even if Boom Boom was inclined that way, the last person he’d be inclined towards would be Harry Hinkel, schmuck extraordinaire. And come to that what was he thinking like this for anyway? My god.

The next thing he noticed, Boom Boom was looking at him with a worried expression.

“Harry, are you all right? You kinda drifted off there.”

“Uh yeah - I’m...I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Harry. Where are you going? That was your apartment block we just passed.”

Harry looked around. Great. Now he couldn’t even find his way home.

 

*******************

 

“Can you pass the oregano?”

Harry reached up in a daze and opened the cupboard containing the herbs. Sandy had bought most of them after developing a brief but enthusiastic interest in cordon bleu cuisine. They were almost all past their sell by date.

“I appreciate this. I really do. After all I’ve put you through.”

“Harry, I know I’ve been giving a very good impression of a quitter the last few weeks - but believe me it’s not usually in my nature to give up on a good thing.”

“You think |’m a good thing?” Harry said quietly. He didn’t feel good. In fact lately he’d been feeling like the lowest of the low.

“Would I have given a bed bath to someone who didn’t deserve it?”

“What?” It was happening again, Harry was putting all sorts of meaning behind perfectly innocent statements.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since all this started,” Boom Boom said. “And I’ve decided there’s no point keeping things from people. It just makes you all chewed up inside. You know what I’m saying?”

Harry nodded.

“So if I’m out of line just tell me.” Boom Boom paused.

“Te...tell you what?” The jar of oregano was hanging from Harry’s hand.

Boom Boom leaned over and stooped slightly so his face was level with Harry’s. Harry was just standing there, hardly moving. His mouth was agape and his eyes were flitting back and forth as Boom Boom gently took his chin in his large, warm hand. And drew closer.

Harry thought.

But he didn’t object. Just closed his eyes and did what any sensible guy would do in the circumstances. He kissed back.


End file.
